1. You read obituaries and phone books to look for interesting character names.
2. While sitting in church, you daydream about interesting/creative ways to murder people.
3. You think of various ways to rewrite your favorite novels. ("No, Dean, you shouldn't have worded it like that, you should have worded it like THAT for greater impact!!! Gah!!!")
4. You are afflicted with book-review-related nightmares.
5. Random, out of context ideas and phrases come to you and you have to immediately jot them down in the unlikely event that you will use them in the future. ("The noses that pick together, stick together!" etc.)
6. You unconsciously give your serial killers your own personality. You wonder what it might mean.
7. You forget that your characters are not real people. This makes you sad, because you really want to hang out with them.
8. When no one else is around, you take your favorite book off the shelf, pull it close to you, and whisper, "My precioussssssss..." while stroking its cover with one hand.
9. You write because if you don't, you will turn blue in the face and fall convulsing to the floor. This is why writer's block is so painful.
10. Everyone you meet is a potential character.
11. You reread a gruesome murder scene you wrote a week ago and wonder if there is something seriously wrong with you.
12. You can't bring yourself to read any of your previous novels because you think they are all crap and you wonder how it is possible that your fans love them.
13. You develop calluses in weird places.
14. You're only 23 years old but you're already developing arthritis/carpal tunnel syndrome from spending so much time at the keyboard.
15. Your basic food groups are Wine, Coffee, Chips, and Mexican.
16. You drive by a furniture outlet advertising a sale for "SOFA'S" and you want to take an Uzi to the place.
17. You bawl your eyes out when you finish the rough draft of a manuscript.
18. You learn a new word and can't wait to use it in your novel.
19. You remember the number of books you've sold at individual book signings a year ago but you can't remember what you ate for lunch the day before.
20. You thought the Apocalypse had begun when you learned that Snooki is a bestselling author, and you're not.
Add your own!
Your blog is great! So happy to have connected in the traditional way...Goodreads -> FB -> blog. Well it is the traditional way these days right? ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm a love story writer so I'd also add:
Your husband starts questioning whether it can technically be considered an affair if you fall in love with the character in your own book.
Oh my gosh. I'm dying. I can't even tell you how many of these I love. Especially the Snookie reference, and the carpal tunnel (I'm buying a brace tomorrow because my wrists hurt so much!) and I think I get finger cramps.
ReplyDeleteBut for real.